ON SALE NOW! Announcing the TRIPLE CROWN KINGS Limited Edition set!

There are so many ways to define an “elite” season; maybe you count stats and check the leaderboards, maybe you value a player’s impact on the game (or just their team), maybe you dig in to those advanced analytics and try your hand at measuring greatness formulaically. There are some seasons that cannot be disputed as being among the best though, one surefire way to establish yourself as baseball royalty: winning the Triple Crown. For batters, all you have to do is lead the league in batting average, home runs, and runs batted in. Easy, right? Only 14 hitters have ever won the Triple Crown, and only 16 seasons in nearly 150 have seen one crowned. Only slightly more common among pitchers (26 of them have won), but still a true measure of greatness, winning the Pitching Triple Crown requires you to finish first in wins, strikeouts, and earned run average. The list of men who have accomplished these feats is a who’s who of Hall of Famers and modern marvels, and these new full-holographic Limited Edition “Triple Crown Kings” packs bring 4 of the games all-time greats to Clutch Baseball for the first time. Below, we’ll take a look at the sets, their contents, the elite players appearing in them, and the variants available in each pack. Each pack will offer both 1/33 “Baseball Royalty” variants of player cards, featuring a gold and purple color scheme, and 1/3 Nickname variants with the Baseball Royalty color scheme as well as the player’s Nickname and stat line from the season they won the Triple Crown.

HAIL TO THE KING

The Hail to the King pack features two of the heaviest hitters the game of baseball has ever seen, Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle, and one of the most powerful Offensive Strategy Cards the game of Clutch Baseball has ever seen.

Ted WilliamsComing off of a 1941 season in which he finished the year with a stellar .406 batting average, Ted Williams spent 1942 cementing his legacy as one of the greatest players to ever play the game. He ended the season with a .356 batting average, 36 home runs, and 137 RBIs, leading not just the league but all of the majors in all three categories. With 16 On-Base, a natural HR, and just 2 outs on his chart, the “Splendid Splinter” will be a force to be reckoned with on any team.

Mickey MantleAfter steadily improving each of his first five seasons, Mickey Mantle broke out in 1956 with a Triple Crown season made up of his .353 batting average, 130 RBI’s, and a blistering 52 home runs. Like Williams, each of these led both the league and all of majors, making both winners of the “major league triple crown” as well. It comes at a cost, but this new Clutch Baseball card is easily one of the greatest Batter cards the game has ever seen — 16 On-Base, positive Clutch, 12 Speed, 3 Defense, 5 Icons, and an 18+ HR for a Switch-Hitter? That’s a Batter worthy of the crown!

Hail to the KingThink Mantle was a great card before? Imagine strolling into the batter’s box with a 19 On-Base, +3 Clutch hitter that effectively has no outs, triples at 13, and homers on any roll of 15 or more. Hail to the King makes scenario like this possible, and all the the cost of a single card. In a jam? Down to your final out? Want to lay it all on the line, but stuck with a batter that isn’t loaded with icons? There aren’t many boosts in this game that are worth a total of 4 cards, but discarding 3 to play this might just be worth it when the game is on the line. Needless to say, this card is a game-changer.

The “Hail to the King” Pack of Limited Edition Triple Crown Kings cards will be available for $13.99 in the Clutch Baseball Shop, and includes Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and the Hail to the King Strategy Card. Variant editions of the Batter cards found in this set can be found randomly distributed in these packs, and include a “Baseball Royalty” variant edition (limited to 33 copies), and a “Baseball Royalty Nickname” variant edition (limited to 3 copies).

DEFEND THE THRONE

The Defend the Throne pack highlights two of the most dominant pitching seasons of all time: Dwight Gooden’s 1985 campaign, and one of Sandy Koufax’s THREE Triple Crown seasons, 1965. It also includes a Defensive Strategy Card designed to bring out the best in the best in the game.

Dwight GoodenA year removed from leading the league in strikeouts in a Rookie-of-the-Year-winning campaign, “Dr. K” maintained all that momentum and more throughout 1985. The result? One of the most statistically dominating single seasons in baseball history: 24 wins, 268 strikeouts, and a 1.53 ERA — the second lowest ERA in the live-ball era, trailing only Bob Gibson’s 1.12 in 1968. He also led the league in Complete Games and Innings Pitched, which means that this dominant new Clutch card not only brings the heat (6 Command, positive Clutch, and 4 icons), it brings it all game long with an innings pitched limit of 8.

Sandy KoufaxWhen we started looking into players who have won the pitching Triple Crown, we were surprised to see that three different Pitchers had led in all three categories on three different occasions. One of them, Walter Johnson, made his way into Clutch Baseball in 2018’s midseason All-Star game set, but the only man to do it three times in the modern era had no presence in the game — until now. Not only did he win the Triple Crown three times in his career, Sandy Koufax pulled off the feat three times in four seasons! When deciding which of the three seasons to use, 1965’s 382 strikeout total — the highest of any of his Triple Crown seasons — called out to us, a total which paired with 26 wins and a 2.04 ERA (somehow also the highest of the three) to capture the crown. It was also the season Koufax threw a Perfect Game, so obviously that made it the perfect choice! The result is a beast of a Pitcher card: a lefty starter with 8 IP of 6-to-7 Command, 4 icons, a huge strikeout range, 18 outs, 4 icons, positive Clutch, great defense, and only 1 mistake roll. He costs a pretty penny at 775 pts (second only to the juggernaut 950 pt starter Bob Gibson this season) but depending on how you look at it, he’s 30 pts cheaper than last season’s big bad pitcher Greg Maddux (‘95) in exchange for giving up just a single point of Command, and only against right-handed and switch-hitting batters. Maddux made his presence felt in the Generations Tournament, so it will be interesting to see if “Bonus Baby” is worth the signing bonus it will take to get him into your rotation.

Defend the ThroneWhether you’re looking to shut down a high-profile batter in a Clutch moment, pull out all the stops to secure a W at the end of a game, or just trying to counter the awesome effects of a well-timed Hail to the King, Defending the Throne is what you want backing you up. Increasing your Pitcher’s Command, decreasing the opposing Batter’s Swing, and turning any HR into a 3B (even if it’s because you gave up the advantage or rolled a mistake pitch) should help keep any Batter from doing too much damage when it matters most. Maxing out the Pitcher’s Clutch means cards like Make Him Pay can’t be used against him, and because the card adds to your Pitcher’s Command instead of the Pitch, cards like Make Some Noise can be used to add to the Pitch without counting as doubling up, so even if your Pitcher doesn’t have the 3 icons needed to ignore the discard cost, it’s still a very effective weapon to have in your hand when the game is on the line.

The “Defend the Throne” Pack of Limited Edition Triple Crown Kings cards will be available for $13.99 in the Clutch Baseball Shop, and includes Dwight Gooden, Sandy Koufax, and the Defend the Throne Strategy Card. Variant editions of the Pitcher cards found in this set can be found randomly distributed in these packs, and include a “Baseball Royalty” variant edition (limited to 33 copies), and a “Baseball Royalty Nickname” variant edition (limited to 3 copies).

The TRIPLE CROWN Bundle

Want to get the most bang for your buck and get an extra bonus for doing so? Look no further than the Triple Crown bundle. This set will be available in the Clutch Baseball Shop for $24.99, includes both the Hail to the King and Defend the Throne packs (a $2.99 savings), and will include an additional Limited Edition card: a single-sided edition of the Frank Robinson Manager Card previously featured as of half of a double-sided pre-order bonus for this season’s Series 1 set. If you missed out on those, or if you’re looking to go full player-manager with Frank Robinson to both roster his Batter card and take advantage of his Manager card, here’s your final chance to get your hands on what has already proven to be one of the most powerful Strategy Cards in the 2019 season. So, for $24.99, you will receive: Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Dwight Gooden, Sandy Koufax, the Hail to the King Offense Strategy Card, the Defend the Throne Defense Strategy Card, and a Frank Robinson Manager Strategy Card. Pick them up and begin your ascent into Clutch Baseball Royalty!